There are plenty of hate reads out there for folks who seek out annoyster-penned blogs, online news sites, and social-media pages to feel some sort of warped sense of inner peace. Problem is, there’s so much to hate hate hate online.

No worries. We sifted through the dreck so that you can get an instant injection of rage into your angsty center.


Thought Catalog
The aggregation-style website “dedicated to your stories and ideas” includes subjects that read like undergraduates taking themselves too seriously or topics that might only sound cool if they were performed like slam poetry. Problem is, even slam poetry is better than Thought Catalog and slam poetry is the worst.

There are LiveJournal-style confessionals (“Whenever I Kiss Someone Who Isn’t You,” “My Heart is a House of Open Doors,” “I Have a Father, But He’s Not You”); millennial-centric musings on dating and style (“Why I’ve Stopped Trying to Break Everyone’s Heart,” “7 Pieces of Shoe Advice for Men from 434 Single Women”); and miscellaneous (“The Upside of Failure: Had I Written a Bestseller, I’d Probably Be Dead,” “Conversations With Dead People: Session One, Marilyn Monroe,” “25 Fun and Gross Things You Didn’t Know About Your Butt").

And at the time of writing, there was 10,252 pages of the stuff.
BuzzFeed
A cliché is a cliché because it’s usually an often-repeated truth. BuzzFeed, which claims to be “intensely focused on delivering high-quality original reporting,” is an easy target. For damn good reason.

“19 Memes for Everyone Who Just Really Fucking Loves McDonald’s.” “How Pout Perceptive Are You?: Lips Don’t Lie.” “How Many Pairs of Pajamas Does Ted Cruz Think Chuck Norris Owns?” “21 Movies to Get You Ready For Wedding Season.”

???

These were all found in about five minutes (which is five minutes too long to spend on BuzzFeed) of random scrolling and clicking.
  “Taco journalism” and taco wars
Last month, the mayors of Austin and San Antonio publicly spared over which city has the choicest tacos in the state. The two city leaders even declared a taco summit. State media outlets lapped up the manufactured donnybrook like a salsa-dunked chip.

Dudes. It’s a taco. Yes, they’re rad, but here’s the thing: A taco is a tortilla of some sort and a few fillings. That’s it. You can often make it just as awesome, if not more killer, at home.

If “Texas’ Taco War” doesn’t up the core percent angst, one can check out the taco journalism genre. In 2013, two self-proclaimed “taco journalists” published Austin Breakfast Tacos: The Story of the Most Important Taco of the Day. Soon, the pair will follow with The Tacos of Texas. Please do not put us on the pre-order list. 

Any trend piece by the New York Times
The NYT seems to ask the questions others are afraid to get into, even when they’re trying to decipher when a cappuccino is a legitimate cappuccino. Other deep dives into controversial topics, often located in the style and dining sections, include pieces like “How I Became a Hipster” and “Chopped Salad Has Become the Lunch of Choice in the Northeast.”

However, the trend piece went off the cliff with the 2015 story “Is That Cappuccino You’re Drinking Really a Cappuccino?” The piece leads with: “What if the cappuccino you had this morning was not, in fact, a cappuccino? Scary. More worrisome still: What if your flat white was?”

Oh no.

They appear to be completely serious. How else to explain the 864-word count?


Deadspin
Outside of awesome breaking-news posts such as the Manti Te’o fake dead girlfriend fiasco, the Gawker Media-owned sports site might be tops in click bait.

The editorial staff, comprised of predominately bro-dudes (there are just a handful of woman on the masthead posted earlier this year) is all about writing thin stories with snarky headlines such as “Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat, Take A Look At This Goddamned 7-Foot Chinese Boxer.”

When there is a decent word count, it’s 1,200 words devoted to a story entitled “Oh My God Oh My God I Think Russell Westbrook Could Beat Up My Dad.”

Stories that are basically screenshots of Twitter posts
The storytelling style employed by sports websites has devolved into screen captures of tweets. On some espn.com stories, for instance, there are more Twitter captures than actual copy, and writers/editors don’t seem to care if a tweet might be tapped out by a hired lackey (rather than from a star athlete or sports executive).

Last month, the reliance on Twitter (versus actually picking up a phone and making calls) got goof troop. Multiple websites – including CBS Sports, USA Today, Bleacher Report, Sports Illustrated, Washington Post, and even The Guardian in the United Kingdom – published stories (with Twitter screenshots, duh) about LeBron James unfollowing the Cleveland Cavaliers’ Twitter account. Ultra meta.